About CTUL

Mission

CTUL is a worker-led organization where workers organize, educate and empower each other to fight for a voice in their workplaces and in their communities. We partner with other organizations and leaders to build a movement to win racial, gender and economic justice. We identify the root causes of injustice and work to shift the balance of power between those who have it and those who don’t to improve the lives of our communities for present and future generations.

Victories

Retail Janitors Campaign

CTUL led the Retail Janitorial Campaign from 2010 - 2017. When we launched the campaign, it seemed that large retail chains wanted to put on a nice image for customers with nice clean stores, but behind the scenes wanted to find ways to cut costs, which led to lower wages and benefits for the workers contracted to clean those stores. Retail companies contracted out cleaning jobs, and cleaning contractors evidently took advantage of this to try to avoid accountability for working conditions. This meant little to no protection on hours, benefits, or wages, and made it extremely difficult for workers to have a voice in the workplace. Wage theft was a rampant problem in this industry where cleaning companies felt little pressure to abide by the law. Through the Campaign for Justice in Retail Cleaning, retail janitors have fought to stop the downward spiral of wages and working conditions in the Twin Cities. Workers have organized to effectively end wage theft and nearly double wages across the industry – the first raises workers had seen after over a decade of declining wages. In addition, CTUL won a Responsible Contractors Policy with Target Corporation that helped shift the balance in the market. Ultimately, workers have now won union representation in the majority of the retail janitorial industry in the Twin Cities metro area, represented by SEIU Local 26. This is the first place in the country where this specific market is majority union.

Fight For $15

The fast-food industry has grown a lot in the last few decades, bringing in millions of dollars of revenue for those on top of the food chain, but this wealth has not been shared with the workers who are making it all possible. With the poverty wages and terrible benefits that most fast-food chains offer, it’s extremely difficult to provide for a family, even when working multiple jobs for more than sixty hours a week. Fast food workers in the Twin Cities have been organizing with CTUL as part of the national Fight for $15 and the right to a union since the fall of 2014. They have led several strikes to call on employers such as McDonald’s to pay a living wage and provide benefits to their employees, and in the process workers have won many local victories to improve conditions in their workplaces. Fast food workers in Minneapolis played a crucial role in winning the Earned Sick and Safe Time ordinance in May of 2016 and continue to lead the fight to raise the minimum wage to 15/hr.

Wages Won Back

As of the winter of 2024, CTUL has supported workers in winning back over $6.3 million in unpaid wages since 2007.

Municipal Earned Sick and Safe Time

CTUL members played key roles in the coalition campaigns which led to strong Earned Sick and Safe Time (ESST) ordinances passing in Minneapolis and Saint Paul in 2017 and 2018, respectively. Our members spoke publicly about the need for paid sick days, organized co-workers to strike in support of ESST, hosted events to explore and publicize the issue, and served on city-appointed boards to review potential elements of the draft ordinances. Under these ordinances workers in both cities are able to bank paid time off based on their hours worked, then use that time to access preventative healthcare, recover their own health when they are ill or injured, care for a sick loved one, or escape/receive support around domestic violence (this is the ‘safe’ portion of Earned Sick and Safe Time). These policies are among the most progressive in the nation and have become important tools in fighting the spread of COVID-19.

State and Municipal Wage Theft Protections

Since we formed in 2010 CTUL has been supporting workers in winning back stolen wages, but wage theft remains shockingly common in low-wage workplaces. Over time many unscrupulous employers have built wage theft into their business plans because workers so rarely fight back, and even when they do the consequences for employers are so minor that it makes better business sense to rip off their workers than to follow the law. In 2019 CTUL shifted this unjust status quo in Minneapolis and statewide through the passage of a city ordinance and a state statute which put stronger tools to fight wage theft in the hands of workers and their advocates. These include potential denial of operating permits for repeat offenders and stronger protections against retaliation for workers who come forward.

Worker-driven Enforcement of Labor Standards

While we are proud of our policy victories around wages and paid sick days, a policy is only as effective as its enforcement. Many laws intended to benefit working people, especially workers of color and immigrant workers, are ineffective because they don’t include these workers in their creation and implementation. That’s why CTUL has established a co-enforcement relationship with the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, to assure that all workers benefit as intended from the city labor standards. Through this program, organizers from CTUL as well as Awood Center and Restaurant Opportunities Center conduct worksite outreach to inform workers of their rights under the city labor standards. We also present train-the trainer workshops to cohorts of workers of color and immigrant workers so that they can educate others in their communities about their labor rights and how to take action if these rights are violated. We also meet periodically with city staff to talk about patterns of violations and strategize ways to increase workers awareness and employer compliance.